Ineffabilty and the Consequences Thereof
by AMarguerite
Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley watch a crucifixion and wonder if mankind can be redeemed by a man. Aziraphale is suspicious and Crowley has a very early version of sunglasses.


**Disclaimer: I do not own the copyright to _Good Omens_**.

It was a fairly cloudless day, which was all the more odd since darkness had begun to descend upon the land.

Up on a hill, by a place called 'the skull' a figure in a white tunic stood and watched the darkness fall. He (if such a term can be used) looked immeasurably weary, and gave the impression of having his hands in the pockets of a tweed coat (though he did not have pockets and most certainly did not have a tweed coat).

Along with the darkness came another figure, who moved with snake-like agility up to the first figure's side.

Neither spoke, nor acknowledged the other's presence, until, at the last, the second figure pulled off a pair of tinted spectacles.

"Nice, aren't they? Made in China. Quartz. Used to hide the expressions of judges."

The first figure absently looked at them. "Yes, very nice, Crowley."

"Hides my eyes well, too."

"Mm."

There was another heavy silence, as Crowley put his glasses back on and examined the figure beside him.

"I thought you were still on flaming sword duty."

"No, no. No need for that now." The angel kicked at a few pebbles on the ground. "Didn't think I'd see you here, though." After an awkward pause, he added, "It's been a while since Eden, hasn't it?"

"Yeah," Crowley agreed, scanning the surroundings. "Judea is a dull place, these days. What're you doing here, Aziraphale?"

Aziraphale watched the darkness completely cover the land and, not looking at Crowley, asked, "You don't know?"

"I thought you-"

The angel and the demon exchanged glances.

"You go first," Aziraphale offered magnanimously. "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread and all."

"Thanks."

A loud cry pierced the air. Aziraphale stiffened, while Crowley seemed to relax.

"Nothing like human suffering to put you at ease," Crowley remarked, with a smile like a snake's.

Aziraphale looked steadily over the hill. "Why are you here?"

"Dunno. I'm probably going to tempt the dying over there." Crowley gestured to the hill with his chin. "On the Skull. Nice name. I got the soldiers to cast lots already."

"Oh," Aziraphale repeated bleakly. He drew in the dust with the toe of his sandal and slowly stretched his wings. "Do you know who's over there?"

"Yeah. Put one of them up there myself."

Aziraphale stood very stiffly, lips pressed together and wings folded together almost primly. "Oh." There was another heavy silence, rent only by some talk from the dying men just beyond the hill.

"That was a jolly rotten thing to do, you know."

Crowley looked at him in bewilderment. "What?"

Aziraphale fluttered his wings indignantly. "That was a jolly rotten thing to do. _He_ didn't hurt anyone at all! You know, the first time I was even aware of him, God had us sent to some shepherds and we performed a lovely a capella piece, and then I got to hang round the stables. He was a tiny little mite. Didn't cry at all, though his mother, poor thing, had to lay him in this horrid scratchy manger full of hay and animal slobber. Poor thing, he didn't even know this was going to happen to him until just recently."

He paused for a brief meditation on his theme. "It was horrible really. Eleven years old and the Metatron told him what he'd been put on Earth to do. The poor thing started crying." In a much quieter, haunted, tone of voice Aziraphale continued, "He cried last night too. He didn't want to die."

Aziraphale pressed his lips together and shut his eyes. "Did you do it?"

Crowley blinked behind his quartz glasses. After a moment, he asked, "What the hell are you talking about?"

Aziraphale grabbed his arm. "Come on. Follow me." Half- dragging the fallen angel, Aziraphale marched over the hill to the road. He pivoted Crowley around and pointed at three crosses. "Do you recognize any of those people, Crowley?" Aziraphale demanded desperately, shaking his arm. "Do you?"

Crowley looked at him as if he were mad. "Let go of my arm."

"Sorry." Aziraphale let go and then folded his hands in front of his face, in an attitude of prayer. His shoulders drooped and his wings trailed in the dust. "Just… do you recognize them, Crowley? You should, you know, since you… you put one of them up there."

"Well," Crowley began slowly. "Don't know the one on the right. In the middle…." He took off his glasses and stared. "Christ!"

Aziraphale looked up over his folded hands, with the spectre of a smile. "Would that be profanity or recognition?"

With only a trace of his usual humor, Crowley managed to hiss, "Both."

The man on the middle cross raised his bowed head, and glanced at Aziraphale and Crowley. Tears and sweat had made odd-looking tracks in the miasma of dirt and blood on his face and torso. His eyes, almost hidden behind a crown of thorns, expressed a depth of unknown pain as he tried to move, pinioned by the cruel, cold iron nails in his hands and feet. You could see the flesh rip, the blood drip, softly into little dusty puddles on the ground. The spectacle was gruesome.

Aziraphale couldn't look and hid his face in his hands. To further distance himself, he hid behind his wings.

Crowley, still holding his glasses, looked on in horrified fascination. "Strange how he can see us when the rest of them can't."

Jesus looked around the crowd and winced in pain. He squeezed his eyes shut and shouted, brokenly, "Father, into you hands I commit my spirit." It was more a prayer than a statement, more a wish than a fact. Jesus drew a rattling, gasping breath that seemed to bruise his chapped and bloody lips and croaked out, "It is finished." He bowed his head and sagged forward, the nails ripping the flesh of his hands as he did so.

Some of the people near the cross began weeping, softly, beating their breasts in agony, keening out their grief.

Aziraphale stood still. At long last, he whispered, "Did you do this?"

Crowley was absorbed at the sight of the corpse sagging downward. "What?"

"_Did you do this, Crowley_?" Aziraphale demanded, still safely hidden behind his wings.

Crowley studied the scene before him. "No," he replied slowly, dragging out the word. "Only humans could do something like this to each other." He looked down at his glasses and absently turned them around a few times. "Still. What'd he do? From what I remember, he was a very nice guy. If he swatted a fly, he healed it."

Aziraphale carefully lowered his wings and his hands. He watched as a group of people, standing on a nearby hill, looked at each other in tearful resignation. At the base of the cross, a woman buried her face in a young man's shoulder and began to sob.

"Ineffability," Aziraphale reminded Crowley dully. "Still, I'm glad it wasn't you who did this."

"Nice guy," Crowley repeated, still toying with his glasses. "I don't suppose you know… why he came down here and all. Didn't he have a pretty good deal up in heaven?"

"He did," Aziraphale replied, as a Roman centurion muttered something to himself and began darting nervous glances around the crowd. "I think he asked for this, to be limited like a human. It was terrible. He gave it all up so he could… well… do this. He wanted to save them all." Aziraphale hunched over, wings moving up his back.

Crowley twirled his glasses around. "Doesn't seem quite like His style. Humanity saved by a man."

"You never know with God," Aziraphale said unhappily. "He just sits and smiles. Sometimes the smile's sad, sometimes it's happy. But you really can't tell why He smiles the way He does." He ruffled his wings to reassure himself, and a few feathers drifted down. "It's ineffability. Humanity fell because of what it was; I suppose it made sense to Christ that humanity should be redeemed through someone who was part of humanity." He looked sadly at the limp cadaver hanging by its arms on the cross. "Poor thing, though."

They stood in silence, as the people began to leave. The day passed on dreaily. The legs of the other two men were broken and they died, gasping for breath, blood foaming and making odd, lacy patterns- Aziraphale looked away again. One of the soldiers pierced the side of what was formerly Jesus of Nazareth and a stream of blood and water poured out.

Slowly, another crowd approached, and took the men down.

Aziraphale roused himself enough to comment, "Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. Very decent chaps" as one man carefully dipped linen strips in an aromatic mixture of myrrh and aloes, and handed them to another, who carefully wrapped up the body of Christ in them.

The two angels, one fallen, the other faithful, stood very still as the body was carried away.

"I suppose we won, then," Crowley muttered.

"No, because Good has to win. It's ineffable."

"Good just got crucified. It's dead. It's getting buried."

Aziraphale paused to consider the seeming dichotomy of this statement. "But it can't be. It's the ineffability of God's plan."

"Then are you saying that all we saw here was a good man dying?"

"No, what we saw was the Son of God who'd given up his… omnipotence and omnipresence and omni-everything to be human. And part of being human is dying."

Crowley put his glasses back on. "Ineffable, you say?"

"That humanity is redeemed by a son of men?" Aziraphale sighed. "Yes. Ineffable."


End file.
